Tournament Formats [updated 4/10]

[Panagrammic]

Update Update: Going simpler. See this.

Update: See latest thoughts here.

Original:
We'd like to get some concentrated testing on PvP.

We thought it would be fun to set up a tournament to help facilitate this, although it's a bit tricky with tons of people potentially spread out across time zones.

There are a number of possible formats here:

Version A. Tournament is for a three hour time period during a given day.

First hour is round 1.
Second hour is round 2.
Third hour is round 3.

Tally up winners at the end of the 3 hours.

Version B. Tournament is over a 3 day period (say)

When you play tournament PvP then you are entered into a special queue, and will be matched with someone that you have not played in that tournament previously.

At the end of 3 days we take everyone that has played at least nn games and anoint winners.

Version C. Assign brackets and have people play the game using invite friend.

Pretty much as it says -- although probably would not work as the number of players playing gets larger. Also, with this scheme there's not really a way to judge if one person tried to play and the other didn't.

Any other ideas / suggestions?

[Knight of the Horizon]

Yay a tournament! o.o;

I think version A might be best.

The other two are gonna cause a looooot of losses by nature of simply not getting to play.
Well I guess version B depends on what the criteria are for winning, but it seems sketchy.

[CelesaAkitaka]

I was thinking of something like NHL 13 where you have a special queue to get tournament matches and you have to win X number of games to be a winner. You could have it set up once a week. I don't know if you want to do multiple queues, but say like everyone starts off week 1 on Bronze. The winners of X set games go to the Silver bracket queue and so on. The higher you move up, the better the prize. It will all matter on the number of players as the higher up you are, the less people there will be. If you lose, you move down, if you're busy and can't make it, you can still go to that bracket queue the next time.

Mine is more of an overall thing based too on how long you want to test these things actually too. The only hard part is there's so many people who have played a lot versus those who have played a little so it gives people a chance to really try it out if you want to do this more in the future.


If it's just a quick 3 day thing you want to do, I'd say over a 3 hour span would be the best. It's harder to be on over the three days usually.

[Omnileech]

I'd pick option 2. I would hate to miss out on a tournament because I'm unable to play when it happens. Also since gaia has a lot of users from outside the United States, then it seems unfair to punish someone on the other side of the planet by either forcing them to get up in the three hour period (even if it is in the middle of the night). Option C sounds impracticable.

[Sinnykvl]

I'm liking option C o -o but who wouldn't love a Mortal Kombat tournament style? biggrin

[Knight of the Horizon]

Omnileech

I'd pick option 2. I would hate to miss out on a tournament because I'm unable to play when it happens. Also since gaia has a lot of users from outside the United States, then it seems unfair to punish someone on the other side of the planet by either forcing them to get up in the three hour period (even if it is in the middle of the night). Option C sounds impracticable.

Maybe run 2 tournaments 12 hours apart from each other?

And have them on like a Saturday or such when lots of people are on. ;o Idk I don't think of real life tournaments as "unfair" simply cause they happen at a certain time. I make time for them. : D

The logistics on version B are a little unclear though.. It might work. c:

[Gavyn the Mighty]

I am torn between A and B. While a shorter time frame tournament from A would be more ideal, depending upon the frequency of tournaments could have adverse impacts on thos who are unable to play.. i.e. they don't have the time. Keeping the time frame in mind, option B sounds like the most ideal choice to me. it gives more players a better chance to find time to be able to participate, while not being obscenely long of a tournament at the same time.

So, in short, B.

[LabTech468]

Version B, so people in different time zones would have an equal chance to participate.

C sounds like it would be too buggy.

[Knight of the Horizon]

PreachInsanity

I'm liking option C o -o but who wouldn't love a Mortal Kombat tournament style? biggrin

Mmmm the hard part with version C is that it's hard to get people on at the same time. sweatdrop

Depends how byes are handled.. Mmm...

I remember MtGO has tournaments.. I'll glance at how that works. cat_ninja

[Omnileech]

Ze3k

Omnileech

I'd pick option 2. I would hate to miss out on a tournament because I'm unable to play when it happens. Also since gaia has a lot of users from outside the United States, then it seems unfair to punish someone on the other side of the planet by either forcing them to get up in the three hour period (even if it is in the middle of the night). Option C sounds impracticable.

Maybe run 2 tournaments 12 hours apart from each other?

And have them on like a Saturday or such when lots of people are on. ;o Idk I don't think of real life tournaments as "unfair" simply cause they happen at a certain time. I make time for them. : D

The logistics on version B are a little unclear though.. It might work. c:

Real life tournaments don't have time zone problems. For those you show up if you can and don't if you can't.

[ryry Kenny_McGroot ryry]

i don't know...they all seem pretty difficult to do; with C it would take a while to organize the tournament, while A and B are mostly about who can be on at the right time, or who has more free time on their hands.

B seems like the best option currently, since A penalizes people in other countries, while C would require tons of attention, and placing is mostly based on your luck with which players are on either side of the board.

kind of thinking out loud here, but how hard would it be to do all 3 types of tournaments, or alternate between them?

[berry-sweet-promise]

Option B sounds fair because people can make time to play but it also depends on the time zone. Maybe have different times over the 3 day period. Like on the first day its east coast time zone, 2nd day pacific time coast, 3rd day europe time.

Or the competitors in the tournament can be match up by the region they live in.

[Silk Kanishk]

Option B would be best for me as I don't live in the US. 3nodding

[Rogue Phoenix Fire]

I like option A best. I like the suggestion of two set up 12 hours apart to convenience the people in other countries. Personally, I think three days of tournamenting would be excessive.

[Kitcat6363]

I want to do this!!! I am going to play lots to practice ninja